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Black F.B.I. Agents Renew Bias Complaint

Five years after the Federal Bureau of Investigation agreed to a ground-breaking settlement with black agents who had complained of racial discrimination in promotions, the agents' lawyers went back to court today and accused the F.B.I. of failing repeatedly to change the personnel system.

A legal memorandum filed by the agents' lawyers in Federal District Court asked a Federal judge to reopen the settlement agreement, which expired today. The memorandum said the F.B.I. had kept in place an outdated advancement system that promoted black agents but then frequently left them on the ladder a rung below the managerial ranks.

''With many of the reforms required by the settlement agreement yet to be completed,'' the memorandum said, ''the F.B.I.'s employment practices continue to have an adverse impact on black special agents. New evidence suggests that black special agents receive less favorable outcomes on promotions, performance appraisals and discipline than non-black special agents. In many instances, these disparities are worse than when the original settlement agreement was approved.''

The memorandum said that an analysis of promotions between 1992 and 1997 showed that 1,110 ''non-blacks'' had won promotions to entry level supervisory jobs, a critical stepping stone to advancement. If blacks had been promoted at the same rate, it said, there would have been about 117 promotions of black agents. Instead, 80 black agents won promotions.

F.B.I. officials disputed most of the black agents' accusations saying that they have worked vigorously to implement an agreement that has proved far more complex than it initially appeared. They said that the agency had made significant progress under Director Louis J. Freeh and remained committed to eliminating inequitable policies.

Although implementation of the agreement has been the responsibility Mr. Freeh, the settlement agreement was one of the few highlights in the troubled tenure of former F.B.I. Director, William S. Sessions, who was removed from office by President Clinton in 1993. Some black agents have given Mr. Freeh credit for his statements of support for minorities and praised some executive appointments of blacks and women, but they have questioned his day-to-day commitment.

A senior F.B.I. lawyer said the agency had worked diligently to put the agreement into effect.

''The F.B.I. in good faith entered into a complex settlement agreement with this class of special agents and in the intervening five years has implemented probably 150 of the obligations we agreed to,'' said Thomas A. Kelley, the F.B.I.'s deputy general counsel, who has supervised the agreement at the agency.

''About four of these obligations remain unfinished,'' Mr. Kelley said. ''Two of those four are very complex projects which involve outside consultants and because of their complexity and size the F.B.I. has had some difficulty in completing them but we have worked every day very hard to finish them.''

But a lawyer for the black agents said that the F.B.I. did not aggressively solve the most serious problems.

''While the Bureau has implemented many minor changes of the settlement agreement, the major components remain years away from completion -- a new promotion system and a new performance evaluation system,'' said the lawyer, David J. Shaffer, who has for years represented black agents. ''Almost a generation of black F.B.I. agents have lost the benefit of this agreement.''

There were 11,548 agents at the F.B.I., as of Sept. 30. Of the total, 84 percent were white, 7.1 percent were Hispanic, 5.7 were black and 2.5 percent were Asian. There were 1,871 female agents who comprise 16.2 percent of the total.

The F.B.I. statistics show a slight gain in the number of black agents who have moved into the first-tier managerial ranks from 5.9 percent of total in 1993 to 7.3 percent as of this year. At the highest executive ranks, blacks occupied 2.4 percent of the jobs in 1993, but they hold 7.2 percent as of this year.

John Sennett, president of the F.B.I. agents association, which represents three-fourths of the active agent force, said fewer agents than in the past had sought managerial jobs.

''The bureau is currently conducting a study to find ways to make career advancement more attractive to larger number of candidates,'' said Mr. Sennett, whose group has tried unsuccessfully to intervene in the black agents' suit. ''All agents share a lack of confidence in a management selection system that is not as objective as it should be and our association has communicated how important it is that the selection system for first line supervisory positions needs to be standardized.''

Mr. Freeh's critics within law enforcement have complained that the high visibility promotions of Mr. Freeh's associates from his days as an agent and Federal prosecutor in New York underscored a perception that entry to the agency's executive ranks depended on friends in an old-boy network dominated by white men.

In their original complaint, the black agents complained that the F.B.I.'s Management Assessment Program, a system for evaluating whether an agent was suitable for supervisory duties, was a highly subjective approach that discriminated against them. The memorandum said the agency agreed to revamp the program, but instead eliminated it, preferring to create a new system.

But the highly complex computerized replacement system remains unfinished and the agents' lawyers said it appeared no system would be operational for another two years at the earliest.

The F.B.I. also agreed to standardize performance appraisals which black agents said unfairly worked against them. The agency hired an outside contractor to design a new system, but it has yet to be completed and, the lawyers said, is years away from being incorporated.

The agency agreed in the settlement to examine why disciplinary proceedings were brought disproportionately against black special agents -- at almost twice the rate of white agents. The memorandum said the F.B.I. had ''neither completed the study nor instituted any reforms.''